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Eurasia
December 14, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 24
On the human rights front, December 7 saw an appeals court order the detention of former Presi- dent Robert Kocharyan on charges of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order. He was first arrested in July but was then freed in August. The case was subsequently sent to the appeals court. Kocharyan served as president from 1998 to 2008. The charges relate to the “Marti mek” (“March 1”) bloody crackdown on mass protests in 2008 that broke out over a disputed election.
Moscow has observed Pashinian’s coming to power cautiously, but he has pledged that Russia, which has a military base in Armenia and delivers indispensable gas supplies, will remain Yerevan’s strategic ally. At the same time, the administra- tion Pashinian ran before declaring a general
Kazakhs to challenge Uzbek automaking dominance as Chinese pump in capital
Kanat Shaku in Almaty
Kazakhstan’s largest automobile manufacturer is now majority-owned by a Chinese company that is to pump $1.1bn into the enterprise.
A 51% stake in Saryarka AvtoProm has been acquired by transnational state company China National Machinery Import and Export Corpo- ration (CMC), a subsidiary of China’s Genertec, under an agreement signed on December 12, according to the official website of the prime minister of Kazakhstan.
Though it boasts Central Asia’s most dynamic economy, Kazakhstan has to date shown
little prowess or ambition in automaking. Car manufacturing in the country of 18mn has largely
election moved to strengthen relations with the European Union.
Pashinian has also indicated he would not change policy on the long-running issue of Nagorno- Karabakh, the mountainous breakaway territory occupied with ethnic Armenians which is interna- tionally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.
The HHK has a long way to go to climb back into an influential position in Armenian politics. Lately, it has taken the line that Pashinian is developing a "cult of personality" that will weaken multi-party democracy. The party is counting on the "so- called post-revolutionary euphoria" dissipating, Armen Ashotyan, vice-president of the HHK, has told local media.
A Hanteng X5. The JV is to produce Chinese brands including JAC, Ankai, Howo and Hanteng partly for export to the huge Chinese market.
focused on domestic market demand and has not moved beyond relatively low output levels — the annual auto production level roughly ranges between 20,000-30,000 units.
The newly formed Chinese-Kazakh joint venture is to lead to an increase in locally-sourced content in Kazakhstan-manufactured cars to 50% and raise the annual production of Kazakh cars to 100,000 units. Such a boost would set the country on course to rival the only other major regional car manufac- turer, Uzbekistan. For comparison, Uzbekistan’s car production, via its US-Uzbek joint venture GM Uzbekistan, stood at 135,470 units in 2017.
Kazakhstan’s First Deputy Prime Minister Askar